Based in Paris, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is an international body of 37 countries working ‘to build better policies for better lives’. More than 1,000 conferences are held annually in OECD conference centres in La Muette and Boulogne, including around thirty conferences and major events.

Currently, OECD hosts around 250 daily web conferences. Most high-level meetings offer interpretation in at least both official languages of the OECD and rely on collaboration, meaning interactions are dynamic among participants.

Audiovisual services (audio, video and web conferencing) have been used for several years in OECD, but with the increase in remote participation requests in recent months, and the massive virtualisation of OECD events, communication needs have evolved. Today, many meetings take place in a virtual (remote participants) or hybrid (presence of participants simultaneously on site and remotely) fashion.

In this context, the audiovisual department had to quickly adapt and rethink its strategy, adapting its digital infrastructure to new interpretation flows using Dante networking. ‘We had used Dante before the pandemic, but only for a few implementations,’ says OECD Head of the Technical Audiovisual Support Unit, Guillaume Carlier. ‘However, we knew it was a powerful and flexible option. When the crisis happened, we saw a major change to the way we had traditionally held meetings, and quickly turned towards Dante based on our previous experience and knowing we could trust Dante to do what needed to be done.’

OECD meetings can require real-time interpretation services to be routed according to participants’ needs, with up to 47 interpretation booths in use at any given time. To do this, a team of interpreters following social distancing rules work on-site to interpret the meeting. As audio comes into the video conferencing platform, interpreters’ audio is added via microphones connected to a Harris Communications Platinum MX Routing Matrix. The matrix sends audio to either a Focusrite RedNet D64R Madi-Dante Bridge or a Focusrite RedNet D16 AES-Dante Bridge. From there, the interpretation is all Dante-native signals.

To use the audio in the video conferencing software, the signals are routed to Dante AVIO adapters connected to PCs. AVIO-connected PCs are used to supply audio into the remote meetings. In addition to this the OECD also uses several Dante-enabled Allen & Heath AHM64 matrix processors to process all of its audio signals.

‘Dante makes it seemingly simple,’ Carlier says. ‘We use one AVIO per language – it could be English, French, Spanish, Chinese – and we connect it directly to the PC running the video conference tool. From there, the audio is embedded in the video conference. This means we meet the criteria for our meeting language requirements.’

When participants are on-site, they can also send the Dante signals across the network to the relevant meeting rooms and out through an infrared audio-conferencing system.

‘Really, we can send it anywhere and to any system,’ Carlier says. ‘All you have to do is have someone choosing the right language for where it needs to go.’

To manage all signals effectively, the OECD relies on Dante Domain Manager software that enables user authentication, role-based security and audit capabilities.

‘Because of how we work and what we do, we need very strong monitoring and control systems, especially with our audio networking,’ says Emmanuel Renoul, Technical Audiovisual Support at the OECD. ‘We need to know where our signals are going and control who has access to them. Dante Domain Manager provides us with just that. We knew this when we discovered that Dante Domain Manager allowed our audio to cross subnets. With Dante Domain Manager we keep all of our audio networks setup nice and tidy and it can be managed with just one click.’

The Dante system went fully live in September 2020 and multiple meetings with live interpretation are now held effectively and efficiently.

‘At the beginning of this pandemic, we knew it was going to be the right choice to move to Dante,’ Carlier says. ‘The interpreters are working just as they normally do and the meetings are working efficiently. The OECD can continue working toward its goals.’

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